Students in Houston’s East End will get brand-new shoes in time for the holidays, thanks to the Navigation Area Business Association’s annual Shoes for Kids donation.
The event will take place Thursday, Dec. 14, 2017 at 6 p.m. inside the gym and cafeteria at Austin High School (1700 Dumble, Houston 77023).
For the 30th year, NABA will donate more than 2,500 pairs of shoes to students from 10 HISD elementary schools: Burnet, Carillo, DeZavala, Franklin, Gallegos, J.R. Harris, J.P. Henderson, Lantrip, Page, and Tijerina.
This East End tradition was first organized in 1987 by the late Yolanda Black Navarro, NABA co-founder and HISD school namesake for Navarro Middle School. The program brings donors and volunteers together to help size and fit shoes for deserving elementary schoolchildren, and has provided more than 32,000 pairs of shoes to children since its inception.
“Houston and Harris County honored my mother’s legacy in 2016 with the renaming of a middle school and a park in her honor,” said Navarro’s son, Christian Navarro. “It’s with great pride that we will continue her legacy with another successful Shoes for Kids event. Because of incredible donors and volunteers, we will send more than 2,500 children home with a new pair of tennis shoes.”
Volunteers from all over Houston, including area businesses and corporate sponsors such as Rack Room, Perry Homes, Halliburton, Farouk Systems, First Service Credit Union, and Whataburger, will fit children for a new pair of shoes.